2004-09-13 - 3:04 p.m.

So little time so much to do...

I'm getting back a bit of my motivation to write both in here and in my pen-and-paper diary but it's just so hard to find the time to do it. Today is my last day off, I've been doing the domestic thing (washing, cleaning, etc) and still have cooking and more to do, but I also want to write, need to pay some bills, it doesn't stop.

Friday was a big night. The kind that lasted until 11am Saturday. I was invited to my friend Erin's birthday dinner, and decided I might as well try to make it, despite it meaning swapping out of my shift. The gist of the swap is that I front up for work at 6am after finishing at around 10pm the night before, and as a result my days off begin 9 hours early. The person I swap with is laughing provided they haven't made plans- one less morning (ie 2 mornings and 4 nights)- I'm the one doing the crazy shifts. I'd love to do it all the time quite frankly- I front up to work that last morning no worse off than any other morning- when you have to get up at 4.40am it makes little difference if you've worked the night before or just stayed at home- I don't find the amount of sleep I'm getting changes, and sometimes the quality of it improves a little because I've been doing something that makes me tired.

So after a quick nap I found Erin at the cafe in Cockle Bay that her dinner was at. Jane came about 20 minutes later, and they were the only people that I knew. But sometimes that's kinda nice- you're the representative of that group of friends. Her family were there as well as her friends, and afterwards the friend component, or part thereof, took a taxi back to the Townie.

Her friend Ruth was easy to talk to- or more to the point she could talk the ear off a cornstalk, so I got to know plenty about her by the end of the night. I proceeded to get nice and drunk- at one point throwing caution to the wind and doing shots of chatreuse with Erin (which required running across to the Zanzibar, taking the shot and running back to the Townie). I'm not suggesting there's anything so wild about shots of chatreuse that requires throwing caution to the wind, it was more the "fuck it, if I throw up I throw up" mentality. And I didn't.

On one such run, I reminded Erin that we were supposed to get together and do some piano/vocal duets (discussed the last time I saw her at my party in January), also that we'd discussed going out and doing amphetamines together and that I happened to have some speed at my place.

Why do I have speed at my place? Well, you all know the drill- never did that stuff or had any desire to, yada yada yada, then felt like if I wanted to I couldn't because I didn't have the connections, and felt like I couldn't because it wouldn't work with Jane and I being in different minds about that sort of stuff. I try not to go on about it too much because it makes me sound obsessed with something that I'm not obsessed about- it's just difficult because I feel like my being interested in something (or several things) that is/are in the past for Jane suggests some sort of immaturatey on my part, when in fact all it shows is a certain difference in personality.

I think Jane has more of an addictive personality, while I have an obsessive personality. I don't discover something, do it to death and then put it behind me. I just keep building on my experiences. Before about 2nd year of Uni I was so against anything other than alcohol- smoking, drugs- when I was 18 I didn't believe in sex outside of a relationship. I know so many people who did all their drinking in high school and now more or less don't drink at all (and plenty who just drink more sensibly now). I know heaps of people that needed that part of their life where they slept around heaps, or pashed a different guy eac night, and then got over it- and at least two of my closest friends (present tense, I wont even go into Annie) had periods of their lives where they did way too many drugs and now have absolutely no interest in touching them again. In Jane's case she does very rarely but for all intents and purposed she has no interest in it.

I'm not sure I've ever done way too much of anything. Most things for me have been a process of gradually getting comfortable with them I think. It took me a long time to get past the "just say no" mentality that is thrust upon us (the very mentality that causes most teenagers to rebel and do the opposite). Now I don't believe in "just say no", I believe in saying no for a reason. Jane's is that she was out of control in that area of her life before, and it lost its appeal. I have a reason not to do that sort of thing every week. I have several. Firstly I know what it can do. Secondly I have no need to- escapism is fine once in a while but all the time is an indication that something else is missing from your life. That can be applied to so much more than drugs. That can be applied to someone who spends all day watching TV, or reading, or writing, and leaves reality behind. And thirdly it would upset Jane. Maybe doing it at all upsets her, but I don't have that same reason as her to never do drugs. I don't know that it would be fair for her to ask me never to do them when she had to decide for herself that she didn't want to anymore, and I don't even know if it upsetting her is one of the reasons I have and will do it so infrequently- because I don't think I necessarily want to do it any more frequently, I just want to be able to control when I do- which brings me back to the frustration I felt at not having the connections to do things when I wanted to.

So enough of that tangent, I had some at home because I got some from an acquaintance because I wanted to be able to do that (ie get it for myself) and then be in control of my own destiny. And maybe also prove to myself that I would still be disciplined even in possession of the stuff. Just because it was sitting in my drawer for a month didn't mean I took it every time I went out in that time. I'd like to have some pills for the same reason- but if I had them it wouldn't mean I would *have* to take them.

Still, there was the issue of how to approach the issue with Jane. Ask her permission and therefore mae an issue out of it when we both agreed it wasn't a big one. Not tell her for fear of upsetting her even though she agreed in principle? And what about the responsibility I have to not encourage her to take it for health reasons? So I kept finding myself intentionally leaving it at home so it wouldn't be an issue later in the night, 10 or 11 drinks down the track. And then realising how much it wouldn't have been an issue and wishing I'd brought it along.

But in this case, with Jane's permission (and her declaration that she'd already drunk way more than she was supposed to so she would be up for a bit she supposed) Erin, Ruth and I went back to my place to do lines off our coffee table and bring some back for Jane. Just writing that sounds so... not me... but that's kind of important in a way because I don't want to be pigeon-holed. I don't have to pretend that the drug culture doesn't interest me at all just because that's what most people know of me. I don't have to worry about people reading this and thinking "boy has he changed" because yes I have in many ways but then I haven't changed in many ways as well. So yeah we did lines off the table and I'm not writing it because it sounds cool or- the opposite of straight (the opposite of me?) I'm writing it because I enjoyed it, without that making me now "someone who is into drugs" and without it making me "someone who didn't used to be".

We left the Townie at 5am, walked back home in the daylight, then Erin, Ruth and I chatted for a while Jane crashed, Ruth went home and at about 8.30am Erin and I went back up to King St in search of coffee, before Erin went off in search of Ruth and I went home in search of sleep.

Erin and I talked a lot about the circle that we met in. About a man who may be the opposite of everything he claims to be, and about a girl who I stopped believing in. The two are very linked, for it is the latter who gave me the bad impression of the former, and if I can't believe her then maybe I was wrong, and maybe he isn't as bad as I thought he was. That even if he was, I couldn't put the two sides together, and it hadn't stopped me believing in what it was about in the first place- the music.

Cindy still believes in the music, but not the man. Ellie doesn't want anything to do with either. But then that's where the side of me that doesn't just do things to death and give them up comes in. We all did it to death four years ago. But I can't pretend I don't like the music just because I don't think I like the man. And I can't pretend I'm not interested in going to see the music performed anymore either because I'm still drawn to it. Moreso now that I'm not being faced with the flipside on a regular basis. Before I felt like it was hypocrisy to love her and still support him, for all that he was supposed to have done. Now it feels like her being out of my life has given me just enough reason to forget and to believe again.

I'm not entirely convinced. The picture she painted was of a man so manipulative and so clever that it's hard to see it as the product of her delusional mind. For every thing she said that I had no real proof of I could see exactly where it could fit in with what I did know. How it could feasibly be the dark side of the moon.

I'm just not sure if I care anymore. Should I go through my entire CD collection and find out if the people behind the music are worthy of my patronage? Throw out "Never Mind the Bollocks" because Sid Vicious killed his girlfriend? Put "Let it Be" away until I know if Phil Spector is guilty of murder? Burn my Foofighters CDs because I heard a rumour that Dave Grohl supports an organisation which believes HIV is a conspiracy created by a Pharmaceutical company? If Michael Jackson is guilty should radio stations play his music to kids? Certainly not anything after "Dangerous" because it's, well, crap. You get the picture.

Don't make friends with the rockstars. And don't listen to anything anybody says about them because it will never be the same again.

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